Susan Glasser, The New Yorker: “It’s Never Too Late to Do the Right Thing”

In a recent New Yorker ‘Letter from Biden’s Washington,’ Susan Glasser delivers a stark indictment: Trumpists and Republican leadership are consciously keeping enough people resisting the Biden administration’s efforts to control the virus “to keep the disease wreaking havoc.” Why that conclusion now? “It is no accident” that 1 in 500 Americans have died, now totaling over 687,000. It’s becoming obvious that President Biden cannot inoculate Americans against Fox News. In the meantime, the Biden administration, “on both foreign and domestic fronts, remains a jumble of aspirations and retains a haze of uncertainty about how to achieve them.” That directly shapes its international approach to Covid-19, including the recent Global Covid-19 Summit organized by President Biden on the margins of the UN General Assembly. It is “a statement of the obvious” that nearly half of the country is dedicated to the failure of the Biden administration. When a “flaming dumpster fire” pandemic continues in the United States -- the fourth wave fueled by vaccine refusals – the resulting domestic crisis gravely limits the ability of the United States to be a world leader on Covid-19. On the pandemic as well as Afghanistan and other foreign policy priorities, the administration is taking an approach that is far less multilateral, alliance-focused, and consultative than expected. Why? The answer is not yet clear: if the administration is simply overwhelmed by demands, or if this approach is a conscious internal “predilection.” Does she agree we are drifting inexorably towards a US-China cold war bifurcation of the world? “Yes, I do.” Do we urgently need a national commission on the pandemic? “Absolutely.” “You cannot escape history.” Please listen to know more.

Susan Glasser is a staff writer at The New Yorker, author of Letters from Biden’s Washington